Authors often go through several working titles before settling on one. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (Bookshop|Amazon) was originally Trimalchio in West Egg, Trimalchio being an ostentatious nouveau riche character in an ancient Roman work...
Today’s most popular dog names are Max and Bella. In the Middle Ages, though, dogs would answer to names like Amiable. Or Nosewise. Or even … Clench. ? Is the term redneck derogatory? Some folks proudly claim that name. They say...
How did the word gay go from meaning lighthearted to homosexual? Also, why are elementary schools sometimes called grammar schools? Plus, imeldific, gone pecan, random Scrabble words, and the difference between borrow and lend. And the etiquette of...
The exclamation Fiddlesticks!, meaning “a trifle” or “something insignificant or absurd,” goes back to the time of Shakespeare. It endures in part because it’s fun to say. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript...
blipster n.— «So just what is a black hipster—a “blipster” or “alt-black”? Like many recent cultural trends, this one straddles race, politics, fashion and art. For the purposes of discussion, we’ll stick with men (though I have seen some...
earn out v. phr.— «Consider the advance system, whereby a publisher pays an author a nonreturnable up-front fee for a book. If the book doesn’t “earn out,” in the industry parlance, the publisher simply eats the cost...
